Sunday, June 04, 2006

Bromley & Chiselhurst - Lib Dems grasp at straws

In the continuing saga of the Bromley & Chislehurst by-election, the Liberal Democrats have made their utterly predictable claim that "It's a two horse race". Every election they try to claim that only they can take the seat from the incumbents, citing some extremely dubious statistics, ranging from "most recent election in this area" (and not saying it's a parish council by-election thirty miles away) to "current political representation" (based on the number of councillors each party in a Conservative-Labour marginal ward held, after one of the three Conservatives defected to the Lib Dems). This time round it's based on what bookies giving Labour 100/1 odds on winning. Curiously the Lib Dem odds are not cited in the story. And I wouldn't put it past Lib Dems to be making bets themselves in the hope of bringing the odds down to support this dodgy propaganda. This is a classic case of Lib Dems grasping at straws.